Worshippers kneel during a service led by Father Myron Flax in the Catholic Center in the Citidal Mall last week in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Posted on 06/25/2005 6:38:28 PM PDT by murphE
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Amanda Zkiab visits The Citadel Mall four or five times a week, but the 25-year-old isn't there to scour the sale racks, stuff herself with food-court goodies or cruise for a date.
Zkiab bypasses the shops and goes straight to the Catholic Center, which offers Mass, confession and spiritual guidance in a place where people normally worship couture and pray they haven't reached their credit limit. Even the rosaries are free.
"It's so convenient, there's no excuse," Zkiab said one afternoon after Mass. "When I'm done, it's like, 'Oh, I can shop.'"
What started as an experiment in 2001 by a small group of Capuchin Franciscan friars has grown to a bustling ministry that attracts up to 50 people for afternoon Mass, despite its recent move into a temporary space across from its old location. In September, the center plans to relocate into a bigger storefront, complete with a new, 100-seat chapel.
The Rev. Curtis Carlson, one of three friars who work full time at the center, said he believed there were fewer than 10 Roman Catholic centers in malls across the country.
But the idea of ministering in the marketplace is centuries old. St. Francis of Assisi, who founded the Franciscan order, often would preach in markets or plazas.
"Malls are sort of modern day versions of that," Carlson said. "It makes sense that the church would be where the people are."
The mall also benefits because the Catholic Center brings regular foot traffic to an area that has struggled to keep tenants, said Bob Taylor, senior property manager at The Citadel.
"It brings, certainly, a very solid type of individual into the mall," Taylor said. "Some of them shop here, some of them don't, but they all feel good about being here."
Once inside the Catholic Center, however, it's easy to forget the surrounding mall, except for the laughter and shrieks coming from the nearby children's play area and the Beatles and Chuck Berry music wafting in from the mall's sound system.
The temporary center is simply decorated, with Catholic posters, statues and flowers. Several large bookshelves in the front hold pamphlets and prayer books, many in Spanish. Two small booths farther from the entrance give the friars privacy for hearing confession. In the back, out of view from mall patrons, is the chapel.
While not all friars _ members of certain Catholic orders _ are priests, all of the Capuchin Franciscans at the mall center are.
Dressed in brown robes tied with white cord, they celebrate Mass at least twice on weekdays and once on Saturday. At least one friar is available throughout the day.
For many center regulars, it is the always-available friars _ not the center's close proximity to the Gap _ that matter.
Jeannie Potts, a 62-year-old homemaker who tries to attend Mass every day, said she would need to schedule an appointment with her busy parish priest to receive the same services she can get just by dropping in to the mall center.
Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan agreed. "Because priests are doing so very many things in the parish, it's very difficult for them to be available for confession all the time," said Sheridan, whose diocese sponsors the center with the Capuchin Province of Mid-America.
But the center doesn't want to replace the neighborhood parishes, Carlson said. The friars close the chapel on Sundays to work in parishes and don't hold weddings or funerals at the mall.
"We want people to go to their own parish for that," Carlson said, adding that the friars often help people find a local church.
Dennis Doyle, a professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, said malls are bastions of consumerism and an example of the increasing separation between spirituality and daily life.
"(The friars are) challenging both of those things," Doyle said. "By their actions, they're showing that faith and life are not to be separated."
For Potts, the Catholic Center has helped show her that she can find spirituality in even the most mundane tasks and places.
"It makes you more aware that Jesus is everywhere, even in the mall," Potts said. "He comes first, shopping comes later."
Worshippers kneel during a service led by Father Myron Flax in the Catholic Center in the Citidal Mall last week in Colorado Springs, Colo.
I remember when they first arrived, I was skeptical, so it is very pleasing to learn that they need to expand. May God continue to bless their efforts.
Interesting.
This venture seems very much in the spirit of this meditation from the Torchbearer society (sorry for the all caps, that's how I have it saved digitally):
I BELIEVE THAT WE MUST RAISE THE CROSS
AT THE CENTER OF THE MARKETPLACE
AS WELL AS ON THE STEEPLE OF THE CHURCH.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED
IN A CHURCH BETWEEN TWO CANDLES,
BUT ON A CROSS BETWEEN TWO THIEVES,
AT A CROSSROADS OF POLITICS
SO COSMOPOLITAN
THEY HAD TO WRITE HIS TITLE
IN HEBREW
IN LATIN,
AND IN GREEK.
AT THE KIND OF PLACE
WHERE CYNICS TALK SMUT,
AND THIEVES CURSE,
AND SOLDIERS GAMBLE.
BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE HE DIED.
AND THAT IS WHAT HE DIED ABOUT.
AND THAT IS WHERE THE CHURCH OUGHT TO BE.
AND THAT IS WHAT CHURCH PEOPLE OUGHT
TO BE ABOUT.
Great job by these Friars! Note they got kneelers at the center.
In New York, people always used to go to St. Francis of Assisi on 33rd St. near Macy's for confession. The place got a little "gayed up" at one point, and normal folks stopped going there, but then they seem to have gotten a new pastor and orthodoxy began to peep out again.
Purists laugh at downtown churches, but they are a wonderful thing for many of us.
The Franciscans set up a chapel in an Albany NY mall thirty five years ago. When the mall was later purchased by another investment group, the monks were sent packing. Their faithful daily mass goers helped them find a new spot at a smaller strip mall. They are truly a God send to the community at large.
Mission Statement of St. Francis Chapel
Patterned after the life of St. Francis of Assisi who announced the Good News in the marketplace, St. Francis Chapel participates in the mission of Holy Name Province, Siena College and supplements the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in the local Church of the Albany Diocese.
The Chapel in a Shoppers' Park preaches the Gospel for people to come and hear, facilitates dialogue with the contemporary world and invites to reconciliation those alienated or marginalized in the Church and society.
St. Francis Chapel offers a daily opportunity for the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance, Eucharistic Liturgies, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benedition, as well as twice daily public recitation of the Rosary. A quiet space is provided for personal prayer and faith programs of a devlotional, spiritual and educational nature.
Come and visit us.
Simply remarkable.
This is such a good idea! It could help revive the practice of confession.
Very interesting. And if you think about it, it's something of a counterweight to the popular culture. You can find planned parenthood offices in a mall, so why not a house of God?
Well all I can say is,"They are trying to work for souls..and the malls are full of those."
God bless and help those Franciscans! What an idea!
Would that they were Latin Mass Tridentine though!!!
You're right, I used to go there.
These statistics seem to show that people are hungering for more ways to practice devotion, not less, and that if the priests will offer the opportunity, the laity will participate. When these opportunities are not offered at the parish level, the parish suffers by not being able to be blessed by them.
And Bergen (NJ) Mall was among the first shopping centers in the United States to lease space to churches. In 1972, the mall leased to St. Therese Chapel, which continues to offer mass three times a day.
Is that a way for the mall to avoid property taxes?
Could be; albeit for a small portion.
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